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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060661">blood moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonsatdawn/pseuds/fossilizedbirds'>fossilizedbirds (pigeonsatdawn)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>lauki week 2020 ✨ [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys &amp; Sophism (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(not that interesting), Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Murder, Murder Mystery, Suspense, Yes that is all you're getting, have fun</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:16:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,457</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060661</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonsatdawn/pseuds/fossilizedbirds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lauren Sinclair was just trying to take a break from her stressful life as a criminology undergraduate, and instead finds herself caught up in a murder.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lauren Sinclair &amp; Kieran White, William Hawkes &amp; Kym Ladell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>lauki week 2020 ✨ [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965910</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>blood moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i had a crack idea because i drunk last night, so lezGeddit</p><p>(note: i have no idea how things actually go on in college housings, parties, or interview procedures—despite being a uni student myself and having watched countless of shows with similar happenings as below, you'll see what i mean in a second—so don't read too much into it. i'm just trying to get this over with.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>A BULLET SHOT </b> rang through the air<b>.</b></p><p>     Lauren’s eyes, which had been closed in pleasure, snapped open immediately. Along with her vision, the other senses rushed into her like a tidal wave. She began to register the growing sounds of panic and chaos from outside the room, the sharp smell of booze—the same one running down her vessels at the very moment, the ceiling, bed, and door that did <em> not </em> belong to her room. She had only been feeling the pleasure that was being elicited by the senior who wanted to “have some fun”, and though he wasn’t up to her regular standards, she wasn’t particularly picky that night, so she agreed, and he pleased her enough.</p><p>     Said senior had his face buried between her legs, and immediately upon hearing the gunshot, he shot up. They looked at each other for a second, fear apparent in their eyes. Then, without saying much, each of them got dressed, and since the guy was a faster dresser, he went out of the room first. Lauren took some time putting on a particularly tight pencil skirt, which she wouldn’t have thought of wearing had she known she would be having to potentially run away from a murderer.</p><p>     Lauren seemed to have underestimated the security on-campus, because by the time she got out of the room, there were already patrol officers managing the crowd, telling everyone to stay where they were, as they scoured the house for the possible outcomes of the gunshot. <em> Please let it not be murder</em>, Lauren thought to herself in a quite futile way, knowing the reality that it was most probably murder, at the very least an attempted one. No one would stupidly shoot an open shot for nothing, when there were so many witnesses, so much security guarding the perimeters, so little chances of evading the repercussions.</p><p>     But if it <em> was </em> murder, the question would be: who? Who committed the murder, and who was murdered? Then, why? Even though she would very much like to know the answers to these questions, she had to discard her curiosity for a while, to make sure she actually gets out of the house alive—</p><p>     —<em>and preferably not jailed</em>, she thought to herself as a pair of officers came over to detain her. “Miss, where have you been?” One of them asked, and Lauren, physically and emotionally exhausted, just wanted to smack the back of their heads so she could go home, instead of facing an unnecessary accusation.</p><p>     “I was in the room, over there,” she pointed to the door behind her that she left ajar.</p><p>     “Alone?” he questioned suspiciously, as the other officer took note of what she was saying. At this very moment, she desperately wished she’d watched <em> How to Get Away with Murder </em> as Kym had told her to, because she was 90% these incompetent officers are going to pin her as the primary suspect for the murder.</p><p>     It was then she realized, she wasn’t alone in the room, not even during the gunshot. “No,” she told the officers honestly, “no, I was with—”</p><p>     Then she saw the dude she was <em> literally </em> fucking with, not even ten minutes ago, cradling the face of another woman as she cried, terrified, and Lauren rolled her eyes, balling her fingers into a fist. <em> Did I just fuck a fucking cheater? I cannot believe this</em>, she thought angrily to herself, before taking heavy strides to the man, dragging him by the collar back to the officers. “Him. I was with him in the room.”</p><p>     “Mr. Evans, is that true?” the officer questioned. The man who went by Evans had the audacity to shake his head, a face of mock innocence. “<b><em>No, sirs, I’m afraid I wasn’t. I don’t even know who this lady is.</em></b>”</p><p>     Now Lauren was quite sure that she was going to be arrested, since she no longer had anyone to confirm her valid alibi. If she were to be arrested for the murder anyway, she desperately wished that at least she could do so after murdering this cheater and liar. Or at least punch him through his ribs and the lungs so hard that he could no longer breathe. (<em>Oh, that is apparently called murder</em>, Lauren thought belatedly.)</p><p>     The fact that her short temper was displayed clear as day on her face definitely wasn’t helping her case either. So she tried to appeal to common sense instead: “Look, if you can’t believe he’s lying—fine. You go inspect the room and see if there’s anything you can accuse me of a murder with. A gun, an outfit, or like, I don’t know, maybe <em> the body </em> itself. Have you even found the body? Even if I was alone, it doesn’t immediately make me a suspect, does it?”</p><p>     The officers blinked their eyes for a second. The talkative one said, “We still have to—” They were then stopped by an incoming message from their walkie-talkies, and the one taking notes pressed his earpiece deeper in his ear. Then, he said, “Miss, what is your name?”</p><p>     Lauren let out an exhausted sigh. “Lauren Sinclair,” she told them.</p><p>     The two officers exchanged a look she couldn’t quite decipher. Then, the one taking notes turned to look at her. With a much more serious expression, he said, “Miss Sinclair, you need to come with us.”</p><p>—</p><p><b>LAUREN COULDN’T QUITE</b> believe her terrible luck.</p><p>     “Look—I’m literally a <em> criminology </em> major, you can’t expect me to—” she tried to argue, as she was dragged over to a pair of detectives, out by the pool. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to register that all this was <em> real</em>, that she was being suspected of a murder she literally knew nothing about. It was ironic to her, how she had been struggling day and night to become the detective she wished to be for so long, solving crimes and murders, and here she was, being accused for one instead.</p><p>     “Good evening, Miss Sinclair, I’m Detective Riverhood and this is Detective Lawes,” the woman greeted, her face sparing no sympathy whatsoever for the tired Lauren. She sighed, and nodded helplessly in lieu of a greeting. Riverhood went on, “Can you give an account of what you were doing, from the beginning of the night up to when you heard the gunshot?”</p><p>     Lauren sighed, before delving into her recount: “I came to the party at about 8 p.m., with my friend Kym Ladell. She suggested that I should loosen up, because I’d been studying for my forensic psych exam. I grabbed a few drinks, and about 8:40 or so, this man came up to me showering me with compliments. He just wanted to get laid, I know, but I was bored and I haven’t gotten laid in a while anyway, so I went with him to the spare room where the officers found me. We were still together when the gunshot rang, but he left the room first while I was struggling to put on my outfit, and fucking claimed to not having done anything with me because he has a girlfriend and doesn’t want her to know that he’s a fucking cheater. So yes, no one can confirm my alibi.”</p><p>     “Who is this man you claim to be with?” Lawes questioned, and Lauren shrugged. “Evans… at least that’s what the officer called him. I have no idea.” </p><p>     Riverhood sighed, massaging her temples. “Okay, we’ll try to question Evans when he is not in the presence of his girlfriend, if it is as you claim. In the meantime, is there anyone else who can account for seeing you entering the room with Evans? Anyone on the second floor, specifically?”</p><p>     “Was that where the body was found?” Lauren asked out of impulse, before saying, “I was a bit drunk, and I mostly saw his face, so no, I don’t remember anyone.”</p><p>     “So for now, you don’t have anyone to confirm your alibi,” Lawes noted the obvious, even Riverhood glared at him. </p><p>     “I can,” a voice behind Lauren said, and she turned around to a pair of striking blue eyes, face looked as if he was crafted by the gods themselves. (She told herself that perhaps she was seeing him this way because he was coming to save her ass, but he really was stunning.) The problem was, she was sure she’d never seen him before; she’d probably remember if she had seen someone as beautiful as he was.</p><p>     “Mr. White,” Riverhood acknowledged the man, and he nodded back at her with a light smirk. “What have you to offer regarding the lady’s whereabouts?”</p><p>     “As you know, I’ve been sketching the entire night,” the man, apparently named White, told the officers. “I happened to see them undressing gloriously, up in the leftmost bedroom.” He pointed to the bedroom he was referring to, the three other heads turning to that direction, and back to his face. “It was you, wasn’t it, Miss…”</p><p>     Lauren couldn’t help but give the dashing man a glare, out of force of habit. “Lauren Sinclair,” she said reluctantly, before nodding. “How did you even recognize me from a distance—<em> why </em> were you even sketching me, anyway? Are you a pervert or something?”</p><p>     The man snorted, but even that sounded graceful coming from him. “Bold of you to assume I’m sketching <em> you</em>, Sinclair.” Lawes pulled out the sketchbook that he’d apparently confiscated beforehand, and the man pointed to a section of the entire drawing that had shown her and Evans through the window. “It’s quite hard to forget a woman with blazing red hair and an outfit that accentuated her body in just the right way, with screaming confidence and authority as you do.” To the officers, he explained, “I don’t think it’s possible that she made the walk from here to the room with the dead body and back here in the span of a minute, undetected, so I doubt it’s the lady.” Turning back to the woman, he said with a smirk, “The name’s Kieran White, by the way.”</p><p>     Begrudgingly, she muttered, “You’re a great sketcher.”</p><p>     “Why, thank you,” he said dramatically, flashing a grin.</p><p>     “Well, it’s not concrete evidence, but I suppose we’ll hold on to this for now,” Riverhood concluded, and Lawes stashed away the sketchbook. Then she asked something Lauren couldn’t quite get immediately: “What about your friend, Kym Ladell? When did you see her last?”</p><p>     Lauren contorted her face, trying to remember when she’d last seen that hyper friend of hers. “I think about ten minutes before I met Evans, she was still with me in the kitchen counter, and she said she was going to go find Will, or something. They’d been fighting—she’d been ignoring him, but maybe all that liquor gave her the courage to confront him. I’m not even quite sure what they’d been fighting about.”</p><p>     “Will, as in William Hawkes?” Lawes said, his attention now fully onto her, his face unreadable. Lauren made a confused face. “Uh, yeah? Is he also a suspect in the case? Is Kym as well? Speaking of them—why haven’t I seen them at all tonight?”</p><p>     Riverhood took a deep breath, and just as slow of an exhale. Putting down her notepad, she said, “Miss Sinclair, the dead body we’ve found… belongs to William Hawkes.”</p><p>
  <em>      What? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>      No, that couldn’t be— </em>
</p><p>     “No,” Lauren said breathlessly. “No. No. Why would anyone want to kill him? He’s such a nice guy, no one would want him dead. No—” then she took a look at their faces, and her breath paused.</p><p>     “We haven’t seen Miss Ladell at all, and given your testament… You know what’s to come, Miss Sinclair,” Lawes explained. “We’re sorry, and we thank you for your cooperation in this investigation.”</p><p>     “NO!” Lauren screamed at the officers, preventing them from leaving. “Kym would <em> never</em>. She adores the hell out of William. No one would ever kill Will to begin with, but especially not <em> Kym</em>. You must be mistaken.”</p><p>     “We’ll tell you how the investigation goes,” Lawes said. Lauren understood that the detectives could do nothing more, but she couldn’t help feel frustrated, because she knew her best friends more than anyone.</p><p>     She must be dreaming. They must be mistaken. How could <em> Will </em> be dead? How could <em> Kym </em> be a suspect?</p><p>     Lauren was still standing there, in shock, even after the detectives had left. Kieran White, though, continued to watch her, concern apparent on his face. Then he said, softly, “It’ll be alright, Lauren. If it’s as you say, that Kym cares for William, you know better than it couldn’t have been her.”</p><p>     Then Lauren turned her head, slowly, like a broken gear, towards him. She said, tentatively, in a voice that was barely a whisper: “But what if—what if it <em> was </em> her?”</p><p>     When Kieran didn’t respond, her expression turned from devastated to serious, and she glared at him with burning intensity. “You saw something, didn’t you?”</p><p>     “What do you want to hear?” he asked her, because he knew she knew that whatever he said would only break her further.</p><p>     She shook her head, not wanting to believe <em> anything</em>. But she said anyway: “The truth. I want to know <em> what the fuck is going on.</em>”</p><p>     “I’m not sure,” he told her, “but I saw a blue-haired woman jump out of that window—” he pointed to the window far on the right side of the building— “and hide behind the bush as security were coming in to deal with the people. Short, bob-cut, navy blue hair, Asian. Does that match the description?”</p><p><em>      Jumping out the window—that’s Kym alright</em>, Lauren thought to herself in horror. She didn’t even have to say it to confirm Kieran’s thoughts. What she did, though, was sob—over William’s apparent death, Kym’s possible crime, and what was left of their friendship.</p><p>
  <em>      How the fuck did this happen over a single night? </em>
</p><p>     Kieran held her in his arms, rubbing his hand over her back, as she cried out her heart over the stress suddenly dumped on her. She didn’t break down for long, though, her face immediately set in determination as she wiped the last of her tears. She looked at him, and he could only raise an eyebrow at all the implications she sent through that cold gaze she gave.</p><p>     “Help me,” was all she said, but he understood what she meant, and he nodded solemnly. The full moon shone a bit darker tonight, as if tinged with red; under it, Lauren vowed to find out for herself what exactly had just happened, why William Hawkes was murdered, why Kym Ladell had ran away, with the help of a guy with special attention to detail—not for a second questioning <em> why </em> said guy was helping her at all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>look. i drank Last Night, and i started actually writing today. i'm not quite sure why this idea turned out more crack than what i planned last night (look i wasn't actually drunk—i haven't tested my limits and i definitely haven't come close to them—basically i was sober last night—) but idk basically this was so freaking wild for no reason even I'm confused at what goes on and why this turned out this way.</p><p>this is a college <b>AU</b> alright. it didn't turn up quite <em>lauki</em> enough, but meh. i started writing, and finished and was too lazy to change the fact that lauki wasn't so prominent here. but i'd have to say i quite like the ending. </p><p>i was going to go with the usual student dynamics, but i thought since i've never tried writing mystery before, imma give it a try, so you can find literally every genre in my lauki week fics. unfortunately i found this to be more crack than anything. oops. sorry.</p><p>p.s. i also thought this would be an ok fic to continue, but because i'm lazy and i like hanging things—imma leave this the way it is. if i ever find the inspiration to go on writing one day, maybe i'll continue this thing. but generally i don't like aus, so i probably won't think about it too much.</p><p>p.p.s — fun fact: i've killed all of the main four in different fics now! my heart can rest assured. (i'd kill lukas too, but i would never kill lila. lila is a blessing we need to protecc at all costs.)</p><p>ANYWAYS! this is finally the end of my lauki fics, and now i can go on a month hiatus and go back to reading people's fics instead. thanks for reading the fics and accompanying me in this wild, wild ride. see you soon and have a good day/night! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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